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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Suspect is Believed to be Driving a Car of Some Sort

I stood on my front steps last evening, talking to my neighbor, a woman as ridiculously vigilant regarding the park as I am.

You see, there’s a public park across the street from our properties, a lovely green spot with big trees. There’s soccer and baseball in the summer, hockey in the winter, large intra-mural colored-tee-shirt-wearing competitions between teenagers of different churches (“Current standings: Lamb of God has walloped Christ Our Lord at the three-legged race; House of Mercy has trounced Abundant Life in punt/pass/throw! Up next: The Church of the Nazarene against 34th Street Southern Baptist. You have two minutes to the starting gun! Two minutes!”)

Screaming laughing kids, the litter, the bull-horned announcements, the cars.

The cars.

Sometimes the cars pull up, cut their engines, make phone calls, wait for other cars. Thug-Life tattooed men move things from one trunk to another and then speed away.

And there I am, on my second-floor porch, watching, trying to get a license plate number. Difficult to do, but the binoculars I got for my birthday help.

No one ever looks up.

And those aren’t hotdish recipes they’re trading.

I call every time, but the cops haven’t made it in time to catch them yet.

The cars – who can describe them? That’s the problem when you can’t get the plate number.

“Ummm. It was a white car. It had four doors and tinted windows. I’m pretty sure it had tires. And there was chrome. Lots of chrome. Oh, and I believe “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle” was on the DVD player in the back, but I might be wrong about that.”

Have you seen that car?

When did I stop knowing things about cars? I like to think it was when, at least in my eyes, they stopped being distinctive and interesting; but it could actually be about the time I didn’t have to know anything any more, aka after me and the Lug Nut broke up.

I think I became willfully ignorant after that, just because I could.

Ha! Take that, ex-boyfriend! I refuse to remember what you taught me!

That’ll teach him to, uh, teach.

Anyway, what I know about cars would fill a thimble, and get your thimble ready because here it is: You absolutely can flush your own radiator by following the directions on a package; if you’ve just changed your oil and yet nothing registers on the dipstick you might want to check if you put the plug back in; no matter what anyone tells you, your Van Allen Belt is not loose; and there’s not been a single recorded instance of someone being dangerously low on blinker fluid.

And when you absolutely can’t tell a Honda Accord from a Honda Civic, you keep your camera at hand.

23 comments:

Oh man, I get it. Once while driving my kids to school we were behind a car and the front seat passenger held up a gun to the driver's head and then turned and LOOKED right at ME!. Holy shit! I pulled over as soon as I saw a phone and called 911. What kind of car was it, they asked. Uhhh...a dark blue sedan?

I think anyone born in the Motor City is raised from toddlerhood to recognize the automakers. My son routinely announces the cars that pass on the road: "That's a Ford, that's a VW, that's a Chevy, that's a Pontiac, that's a Jeep, that's a Dodge..." etc.

I'll drop a line next time I'm stuck on the side of the road not knowing why the car won't move forward any more as you obviously know a lot more than I do about "the ride." ;)

You're lucky to have people in your parks. Over here you just go to a park if you want to practice your yelling skills. We don't do parks any more as you stand a chance of getting molested or robbed. And if you're not fussy, you get both for the price of one. But keep an eye out for those "traders" over at your park; you'll feel like the local hero when busting one!